India Rose & The Eternals - The Fountain Of Youth Chronicles Vol. 1

Chapter 6 - Pickup Trucks, Cupcakes and the Draft

The Town Of Hope Springs, 1982, 11 A.M, Day 4 of Summer Vacation

India's essay was correct, her house was mostly books. Her bedroom, which faced east and got the best morning light of the house, was as full of as many books as some small libraries. India usually read in a chair by the window, or in bed. Her parents would let her read herself to sleep most nights, and her appetite for books had been voracious ever since.

On this particular morning, a few days into the summer vacation and after the essay contest, India sat in her chair trying to finish a book before its due date, which was at the close of library hours that day. Some quiet folk music was playing on the stereo in the corner, and her sister Ireland was diligently drawing at India's desk. The sisters enjoyed each other's presence in a way that couldn't always be understood by outsiders. Early in their lives they had protested when they had to do "quiet time" in their rooms alone. The only way to get them to cooperate was to allow them to have the doors of their rooms open to each other so that they could observe the other sibling, even if they were required to remain in their own rooms.

Just as India was getting to a climactic scene in her mystery book, (where the museum thief was about to be revealed by the quick-witted girl detective), a sharp tapping sound at her second story window broke her out of her spell. She immediately recognized the familiar noise, and reluctantly rose from her chair and went over to the window and opened it.

"Jonas," she called down. "I'm not sure how much longer this fire escape ladder will hold you. Lately it seems like it's been straining. Someday you're going to have to just ring the front doorbell like everyone else."

"Someday," said Jonas, grinning back up. "But not today. Hey, I've got today's paper," he said, holding up a folded newspaper wrapped in plastic. "I bet your essay will be in it today for sure."

"Great, come on up!" replied India, tossing the fire escape rope ladder over the window sill.

Sure enough, as Jonas climbed, both girls saw the rope ladder strain and stretch. Jonas had been climbing up this ladder since before he could read or write, and his visits to the second floor of the Rose house were stuff of neighborhood legends. He would climb in snowstorms and in the rain, in the evenings, and first thing in the morning. He had come up so much, that the windows on the side of the house facing his house across the way, were all visibly chipped from his years of throwing pebbles to get the attention of whoever was around. In fact, in an effort to persuade him to throw small stones instead of large ones, Mr. Rose had intentionally placed a pile of small pebbles below the window for him. This was a welcome alternative to the larger rocks that Jonas had begun to throw when he couldn't find any small ones.

A few neighbors had asked why Mr. Rose let Jonas clamber up and down the side of his house like that, and Mr. Rose would always say something like "A boy's got to climb like a fish has to swim." But deep down it was much more than that. Jonas' Father had lived in the same house across the lawn where Jonas and his Mother now lived, and Jonas's Father had come up to visit Mr. Rose when he had moved to town as a young man. The only difference was that Jonas' Father climbed up a tree to enter the second floor. That tree had fallen down in a storm years before, but the rope ladder now served in its stead. Every time Mr. Rose heard the scurrying of feet against the side of the house (in the early days, before Jonas' coordination had set in, you could hear the effort of climbing up the side of the house from all over the inside of the house), it made Mr. Rose secretly smile.

Mrs. Rose, on the other hand, did not have the fond remembrances to look back on, and made Jonas wash the side of the house twice a year in exchange for a free pass. Neighbors would, bi-annually, be treated to the site of Jonas, hanging for dear life from the rope ladder, swinging a cleaning brush and scrubbing away at muddy footprints with all his might.